


Or Was There Something Else?

by c7a8t9



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, prompt, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6072241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c7a8t9/pseuds/c7a8t9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If there’s anything you’d planned on doing, I’d recommend you do it sooner rather than later.”<br/>He’d said those words. The doctor had actually said those words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Or Was There Something Else?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally inspired by the prompt "one character has a terminal illness" and posted on tumblr. I do horrible things to the characters I like

“If there’s anything you’d planned on doing, I’d recommend you do it sooner rather than later.”

He’d said those words. The doctor had actually said those words.

This treatment wasn’t working anymore, and the next steps were all experimental drugs with high levels of toxicity, nasty side effects, and no guarantee of efficacy.

He’d thought he had come to terms with what “terminal” meant already, but this was a whole new level. He still felt pretty good, but that wasn’t going to last. It was all downhill from here, and he was terrified.

He was stirred from his thoughts by his wife shifting in his arms. She’d slid down his torso as they lay together on the couch, her body draped on top of his, legs intermingled. He shifted to sit up a little more and pulled her back in closer to his chest, planting a quick kiss on the top of her head. Their half-eaten dinners sat cold on the coffee table.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, sensing his unease.

He sighed. There was no use hiding it. “What the doctor said,” he admitted. “about doing… things.”

“Mhm” Donna murmured in reply, surprised that he had volunteered this without her having to pry it out of him. The doctor’s words had been ringing in her ears all afternoon too.

“It’s… well I guess it was nicer than saying “you’re doomed”.”

Hot tears sprang to Donna’s eyes but she kept them out of her voice. “He wanted to offer an opportunity, I think,” she said “so that you could think about, you know, plans… I was… Well, it’s not… have you thought about anything? Spring is coming, we could take some…”

“No,” Josh said, his voice flat and hollow. “I mean if you wanted… there’s nothing I…”

“Nothing? Really? Josh, I know working in the White House was all you wanted your whole life, but there isn’t…”

“No” he said, but his voice didn’t ring true.

“Not even a stupid little childhood dream? Like eating a whole cake for dinner?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle “Did you pull that one out of thin air or is that a Donntella Moss Dream?”

She giggled “That may or may not have been drawn from personal experience, just as with the life lesson that if you eat an entire cake, you will vomit for almost an hour.”

They laughed and he kissed the top of her head again.

“I guess I’d always hoped I’d see the Mets win another World Series.” Donna started laughing again but stopped herself quickly when she realized he wasn’t joining in.

A little sheepish, she quickly said “Well let me make some calls tomorrow and see… we could try to go to a game, have a weekend in New York, or maybe even get away for Spring Training”

“Yeah” he replied without enthusiasm.

“I mean, who knows, this year could be the one. After all it’s been…”

“Twenty-three years”  
“Well, they’re due, then.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“How’d they do last year?”

“Fourth losing season in a row.”

“Well, maybe they’ll be winning this year. And at least you got to see those two…”

“Not exactly,” Josh sighed.

“What do you mean?”

“The first time they won, I was eight. We had tickets, actually, for one of the World Series games, my dad got them from a client and the whole family was going to go, but then the weekend before was the night… that… uh, the night that Joanie…”

“Oh, Josh” Donna breathed, reaching an arm up to rub his shoulder.

“So we were sitting shiva during the whole Series. And when I heard they won, I was so happy, but I felt bad for getting that excited over something when…It just didn’t seem like it should matter that much. So for a while I just always said no when my dad got tickets. He would bring home balls and hats he got signed and stuff, for me, since I wouldn’t go, but he never pushed it. I think he understood. I hope he did.

And then in ’86 it was the beginning of third year of law school, but some buddies got tickets to the Series games and we were all set to go, but, uh, my grandfather got very sick suddenly, so I went home, and uh, he and I got to watch the first couple games together. He was kind of out of it, but when he was awake, he’d talk about the old days in New York, the Giants and the Dodgers and the Yankees battling it out. He had some wonderful memories. But, ah, he didn’t, um… Well, we were sitting shiva by the time they won.

And then I moved to D.C. and Baltimore’s not that far but somehow, it just never… I had tickets and plans to go down to Spring Training the night…you remember Stackhouse? That ancient Senator who filibustered the healthcare bill because his grandson… well, you were the one who figured it out.”

“Yes, I remember,” Donna said, smiling. “That was quite a night. I’d never offered an idea up to Leo or the President like that.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you did that night.”

“But, you never went on that trip.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Josh, are you telling me you’ve been a fan of the Mets your entire life but you’ve never actually seen them play a game?”

“Well, technically I was born approximately seven months before the team existed so not my whole life…”

“Wait, they only became a team in…”

“1962, yes. My first baseball season was their first season. They set the record for most losses in a season since 1899.”

She knew he was trying to make her laugh, but she didn’t really find it funny. It was easy to think of the various misfortunes that had befallen him in the abstract, to see him a just a vaguely unlucky person. But this felt personal, specific. He’d been robbed of so much, so young, and to have one of his great joys be tied so closely to so much sorrow…it just didn’t seem fair.

“Josh, we have to go. I’m buying tickets tomorrow and we’ll go to the season opener. And, if they rally and make it to the Series, or even the playoffs, then come hell or high water you and I…”

“Donna,” he said curtly, cutting her off. He appreciated what she was trying to do, but it was pointless. Going to a game would change nothing, and knowing his luck the day they had tickets for would be the day after he croaked. Her optimism, normally something he loved and appreciated, was grating him now, because if Joshua Lyman was trying to go to a Mets game, both hell (death) and high water (he’d had tickets to a game in college but a freak hurricane blew into Boston and caused a rainout) would probably come bearing down to keep him away. “Look, I appreciate this…we can try to go to a game, a regular game, if you really want, but there’s nothing… anything I’d actually want… It won’t happen. The Mets aren’t gonna rally, we’re not ever going to have—“ he cut himself off abruptly.

“What?” Donna asked, concerned “We’re not ever going to have what, Josh?” she sat up and turned to look him in the eye.

He dropped his gaze, muttering “We’re not, you know, we never talked…but I suppose I assumed eventually we’d…”

“Have kids” she finished for him.

“Yeah,” he breathed, still not making eye contact. She laid her head down on his chest, and tucked her arms under his and around his back.

“Me too,” she whispered as two warm tears soaked into his shirt. A few of his own fell too and he choked out a pained “I’m sorry,”

“It is not your fault” she said, emphasizing each word. “It’s something I wanted, yes, but not something I need.”

He didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He hated himself for doing this to her.

After a few moments of silent tears she took a deep breath and said, “Still, that’s a pretty short list to have. You’ve done a lot—so many things other people never could have dreamed of doing.” She was putting on her sunny disposition for him. He didn’t have it in him to respond. She guessed after a beat of silence.

“Or was there something else?”

There was, but he’d barely admitted it to himself, much less said it out loud. He looked at her and she looked back with such love and kindness that he managed to say the words:

“I wanted to get Sam Seaborn elected President.”


End file.
